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Sister Stories - The Cow Costume

Sisters are the best to remember all those crazy ideas you had growing up. And just when you thought 10, 12, 25 years was enough time that they would have forgotten that embarrassing story from middle school, one of them starts laughing and says, "Hey remember that time you....." Oh you cringe, you cover your face with a pillow, you beg them not to tell it. Again. But of course, it is one of the duties as sisters to tell-it-all and laugh at ourselves along the way. So to my dear, sweet, baby sister, Sarah....Do you remember the time you wanted to be a cow for Halloween? (Cover face with pillow now and start laughing.)We weren't really allowed to go trick-or-treating as kids because my parents weren't too crazy about the whole ghosts, goblins, and werewolf-themed holiday. An alternative for us was the annual fall costume party at our church where you were strongly urged to leave the pointed hat and broom at the door and wear a costume portraying a bible character instead. There are only so many female characters from the bible that make a good costume so my sister Sarah, who was 13 at the time, decided to go as one of the animals from Noah's ark. As any 7th grade girl knows, appearance is huge and fitting in with your friends is even bigger. Which begs the question...

What was possibly going through your mind when you decided to be a giant, life-like cow for Halloween?

As the story goes early in October she saw a super neat, super cute, cow costume in a store. She thought it looked really cool on the girl model pictured on the front of the packaging and she was determined to save her money and buy it for the costume party. My parents gave us a little bit of allowance for odd chores here and there, but it certainly wasn't enough to buy that costume. So she resorted to saving her lunch money every day for weeks. My dad would give us $1.25 each morning for lunch and she would cleverly pocket that money and then sneak the alternative brown bag lunch out of the house in her backpack instead. This cow costume was becoming very consuming and she was resorting to embezzling lunch money to purchase this little piece of Halloween fun. The day came that had finally saved enough money so she convinced my sister to drive her to the party store to buy the costume for her grand debut. She was very proud of her efforts to be a cow and thought that the life-like udder in the front would win her top prize in the "Best Costume" contest. Halloween night rolled around and it was time for her to slip on her beloved, hard-earned bovine beauty.

The entire thing was one piece and as she began pulling it on she realized that maybe this costume wasn't quite as intriguing as it had been in the store.

Imagine a 13-year old, dressed in a brown and white patched footed onesie, complete with a rubber udder and four nipples strategically placed right around the belly area. Uhmmm...yeah. (Continue to cover face with pillow.)

She saw it, she saved for it, she even had to get a little sneaky to make the purchase and my sister, Mamie told her that she had to go to the party because she spent too much time obessing over this stupid outfit and she was going to wear it! So off to the party she went. The closer she got to the party, the more uncomfortable she became and as she arrived at the church and started walking across the parking the reality set in

What. Was. I. Thinking?!? I. Look. Like. A. Complete. Idiot.

Embarrassed beyond belief and not able to even consider walking in the door she made a mad dash back to the car before anyone saw her and told my sister to drive! She ripped that sucker off in the car, begging her to just take her back home and also making her promise not to tell anyone about the costume (yeah, right). She went back home, changed her clothes, tried to stuff that stupid cow back into the plastic packaging and hid it underneath her bed. They did make it back to the party...sans costume. This has become a classic Halloween story in our family and continues to gets some serious laughter every time. My sister Sarah is all grown up now, married, and has one child. But you are never going to believe what she dressed her one year old like on his first Halloween last year....

Happy Halloween!!

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I am a former social worker, turned teacher, turned stay at home mom. I have three children and a fabulous husband! I am a Christ follower. My family keeps me laughing and we are huge sports fanatics. My husband and I are trying to figure out this parenting thing together and figure that if at the end of the day our children know they are loved then its been a pretty good day.